learn-nightwatch
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Learn how to use nightwatch for front-end testing. step-by-step tutorial
Automate your acceptance tests and run them in real browsers!
Testing what the people using your application/website will see and their ability interact with the product is (probably) the most important part of building a web app/site. You can have amazing code, a super-fast backend and gorgeous UI, but none of that matters if people are unable to use it because of a basic bug!
User Acceptance Testing (UAT) with a tool like Nightwatch (Selenium) lets you to run real-world scenarios in your Web App which will give you confidence that the app works in the chosen device(s)/browser(s).
Automated Acceptance Testing using Real Browsers.
Nightwatch is quick to setup and the tests/scenarios are easy to write.
We exhaustively read through all the tutorials, blog posts and documentation for Nightwatch (including the mailing list & StackOverflow Q&A) and have condensed our findings into this step-by-step guide.
We hope you find it useful and decide to use it for your web app/site!
Please give us feedback and if you get stuck, tell us!
Who should learn/use Nightwatch?
Try it on your local machine in 5 mins by following these 3 easy steps:
Clone the repository by copy-pasting the following command into your terminal:
git clone https://github.com/dwyl/learn-nightwatch.git && cd learn-nightwatch && cp sample.env .env
Note: if you're curious what that last part is, see: https://github.com/dwyl/env2
Install the required dependencies
including Selenium Server and chromedriver:
npm install
Run the Nightwatch tests:
npm test
You should expect to see:
Once you see the tests pass you are well on your way to testing with Nightwatch!
1This assumes you have node.js installed.
If not, https://nodejs.org/en/download/
2Selenium Requires Java/JDK see: Java Installation section below. (don't worry, you'll be up-and-running shortly...!)
Once you have Java installed re-run the Nightwatch tests (npm test).
Now that you have had a taste for running tests with Nightwatch, let's walk through each of the steps to get this working in your project.
While we prefer not to run Java on our machines for
security reasons Selenium is still
the best way of running tests in real browsers.
You can check by typing
java -version
into your terminal and you should see your version number if you have Java installed.
How do I install Java? https://www.java.com/en/download/help/download_options.xml pick your Operating System and follow the instructions
##### Mac OSX? (use homebrew)
If you haven't updated brew in a while, do that first:
brew update
That will install cask which is now part of Homebrew.
Now you can install Java:
brew cask install java
You should see something like this:
See: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24342886/how-to-install-java-8-on-mac
cd into your projectnightwatchFirst install the nightwatch node.js module from NPM:
npm install nightwatch --save-dev
Note: while the Nightwatch docs instruct to install globally (
-g), we prefer to always install devDependencies locally to the project and list them explicitly inpackage.jsonso it's clear to everyone viewing/using the project exactly which version is required to run the tests.
selenium-downloadIn order to run Browser tests Nightwatch uses Selenium.
We prefer to automate the installation of Selenium using
selenium-download
which ensures that everyone on our team always has the latest version.
npm install selenium-download --save-dev
Once you've downloaded the the selenium-download node module,
put the following code at the bottom of your nightwatch.conf.js file:
You will create your nightwatch.conf.js file in the next step.
Once you've installed nightwatch, you will need to create a configuration file.
Some Nightwatch tutorials use a nightwatch.json file;
this is good for the most basic cases
but if you want to use variables in your
configuration we recommend using a .js file;
specifically called nightwatch.conf.js. Save this file to your project directory.
You can copy over our basic configuration saved in nightwatch.conf.BASIC.js: nightwatch.conf.BASIC.js
Or copy the following into a file called nightwatch.conf.BASIC.js
require('env2')('.env'); // optionally store youre Evironment Variables in .env
const SCREENSHOT_PATH = "./screenshots/";
const BINPATH = './node_modules/nightwatch/bin/';
// we use a nightwatch.conf.js file so we can include comments and helper functions
module.exports = {
"src_folders": [
"test/e2e"// Where you are storing your Nightwatch e2e tests
],
"output_folder": "./reports", // reports (test outcome) output by nightwatch
"selenium": { // downloaded by selenium-download module (see readme)
"start_process": true, // tells nightwatch to start/stop the selenium process
"server_path": "./node_modules/nightwatch/bin/selenium.jar",
"host": "127.0.0.1",
"port": 4444, // standard selenium port
"cli_args": { // chromedriver is downloaded by selenium-download (see readme)
"webdriver.chrome.driver" : "./node_modules/nightwatch/bin/chromedriver"
}
},
"test_settings": {
"default": {
"screenshots": {
"enabled": true, // if you want to keep screenshots
"path": './screenshots' // save screenshots here
},
"globals": {
"waitForConditionTimeout": 5000 // sometimes internet is slow so wait.
},
"desiredCapabilities": { // use Chrome as the default browser for tests
"browserName": "chrome"
}
},
"chrome": {
"desiredCapabilities": {
"browserName": "chrome",
"javascriptEnabled": true // turn off to test progressive enhancement
}
}
}
}
/**
* selenium-download does exactly what it's name suggests;
* downloads (or updates) the version of Selenium (& chromedriver)
* on your localhost where it will be used by Nightwatch.
/the following code checks for the existence of `selenium.jar` before trying to run our tests.
*/
require('fs').stat(BINPATH + 'selenium.jar', function (err, stat) { // got it?
if (err || !stat || stat.size < 1) {
require('selenium-download').ensure(BINPATH, function(error) {
if (error) throw new Error(error); // no point continuing so exit!
console.log('✔ Selenium & Chromedriver downloaded to:', BINPATH);
});
}
});
function padLeft (count) { // theregister.co.uk/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/
return count < 10 ? '0' + count : count.toString();
}
var FILECOUNT = 0; // "global" screenshot file count
/**
* The default is to save screenshots to the root of your project even though
* there is a screenshots path in the config object above! ... so we need a
* function that returns the correct path for storing our screenshots.
* While we're at it, we are adding some meta-data to the filename, specifically
* the Platform/Browser where the test was run and the test (file) name.
*/
function imgpath (browser) {
var a = browser.options.desiredCapabilities;
var meta = [a.platform];
meta.push(a.browserName ? a.browserName : 'any');
meta.push(a.version ? a.version : 'any');
meta.push(a.name); // this is the test filename so always exists.
var metadata = meta.join('~').toLowerCase().replace(/ /g, '');
return SCREENSHOT_PATH + metadata + '_' + padLeft(FILECOUNT++) + '_';
}
module.exports.imgpath = imgpath;
module.exports.SCREENSHOT_PATH = SCREENSHOT_PATH;
One of our favourite things about using a
.jsfile is the ability to add comments in the file.
This makes it much easier for new people to understand what's going on.
We have a slightly more evolvednightwatch.conf.js(with Saucelabs) see: github.com/dwyl/learn-nightwatch/nightwatch.conf.js
You will need to run the config file you created to download the Selenium driver.
node nightwatch.conf.BASIC.js
Nightwatch "looks" for tests in the /test folder of your project by default;
you can change this to what ever you prefer. We keep our Nightwatch tests in test/e2e.
This is the simplest test you can write for Nightwatch
var config = require('../../nightwatch.conf.BASIC.js');
module.exports = { // adapted from: https://git.io/vodU0
'Guinea Pig Assert Title': function(browser) {
browser
.url('https://saucelabs.com/test/guinea-pig')
.waitForElementVisible('body')
.assert.title('I am a page title - Sauce Labs')
.saveScreenshot('guinea-pig-test.png')
.end();
}
};
Depending on what you named your configuration file, run it with a command resembling the following:
node_modules/.bin/nightwatch --config nightwatch.conf.BASIC.js
We add an entry in our package.json "scripts" section
to not have to type all that each time. e.g:
"scripts": {
"e2e": "node_modules/.bin/nightwatch --config nightwatch.conf.BASIC.js"
}
Then run your tests as:
npm run e2e
If you called your config file nightwatch.conf.js
you can run your tests without specifying the config file, i.e.
node_modules/.bin/nightwatch
If you see the following message while trying to run the tests:
Then return to step 2 to install Java
postinstall scriptWe put an entry in the "scripts" section of our package.json to
run the selenium-download script after all node_modules
have been installed. e.g:
"scripts": {
"postinstall": "node nightwatch.conf.js"
}
Most people building web apps/sites don't have easy access to several devices/browsers to test their output, if you need to test in a range of browsers/devices Saucelabs is a great option.
In our nightwatch.conf.js
we have defined saucelabs as our "default" setting.
We run our tests on saucelabs by running the following npm script/command:
npm run sauce
Which corresponds to the following complete command:
./node_modules/.bin/nightwatch -e chrome,ie11,android_s4_emulator,iphone_6_simulator
This just means "Run Nightwatch using the default configuration (Suacelabs in our case) and execute all tests in this list of browsers."
Note: you will need to have the following environment variables exported for Saucelabs to run your test:
export SAUCE_USERNAME=your-username
export SAUCE_ACCESS_KEY=your-key
If you're new to Saucelabs, checkout: github.com/dwyl/learn-saucelabs
If you decide to use Saucelabs to run your tests (in several devices/browsers), it will take screenshots for you and keep them inside Saucelabs. That's nice for people who are used to using Saucelabs, but what about the other stakeholders?
We decided to upload our screenshots to S3 and created a super-simple .html
file which shows a slideshow of the images.
Example: https://isearch-ui.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/1.0.21/index.html
If you want the screenshots of tests to be uploaded to S3, you will need to have the following environment variables declared:
export AWS_S3_BUCKET=yourbucket
export AWS_REGION=eu-west-1
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=IDHERE
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=YOURKEY
The script we wrote to perform the uploading is: github.com/dwyl/learn-nightwatch/test/e2e/upload_screenshots_to_s3.js
The screenshots taken on Saucelabs browsers/devices are saved locally and uploaded to S3 when tests succeed.
####Running your Nightwatch tests on CI is easy on CodeShip.
We usually set the required (minimum) node version in our
package.json e.g:
"engines": {
"node": "4.4.6"
},
Once you have the desired version of node installed.
Setup Commands:
# install dependencies:
npm install
Test Command:
# run tests
npm test
That's it.
Note: while the tests run seamlessly on CodeShip we were unable to get Selenium standalone working on Travis-CI if you have time to help us, please see: https://github.com/dwyl/learn-nightwatch/issues/8
####Running your Nightwatch tests on CircleCi. To run the test on circle ci you need to make some adjustments to you circle.yml Here is an Example from the circle ci docs
dependencies:
post:
- wget https://saucelabs.com/downloads/sc-latest-linux.tar.gz
- tar -xzf sc-latest-linux.tar.gz
test:
override:
- cd sc-*-linux && ./bin/sc --user $SAUCE_USERNAME --api-key $SAUCE_ACCESS_KEY --readyfile ~/sauce_is_ready:
background: true
#Wait for tunnel to be ready
- while [ ! -e ~/sauce_is_ready ]; do sleep 1; done
- npm start
background: true
# Wait for app to be ready
- curl --retry 10 --retry-delay 2 -v http://localhost:5000
# Run selenium tests
- npm run test:e2e
post:
- killall --wait sc # wait for Sauce Connect to close the tunnel
The test override starts the selenium server for you. Once it is ready the application is started in the background. Finally when ready, the tests are started. You can run multiple test commands i.e.
- npm run test:unit; npm run test:e2e
just like in the package.json
Nightwatch tests can be quite time-consuming so sometimes you may just want to run one test at a time
This can be done by giving each test a tag by adding tags: [ 'tagname' ] to the beginning of your exported test scenario. You can then run the individual test (in this case with tag 'test1') with the script:
"node_modules/.bin/nightwatch --tag test1"
If you want to dynamically choose which test to run using the command line, you could create another script in your package.json
e.g.
"e2etag": "./node_modules/.bin/nightwatch --env local --tag"
and then in your command line you can just run
npm run e2etag -- test1
More detail than you will probably need ... but we're keeping for completeness.
xyz...?We first looked at NightmareJS,
and even though it looks really good (fast), we saw the reaction
non-technical people had when we mentioned it and did not want to have to explain
the name to people/clients every time, so instead opted for nightwatch.
If nightmare ever change their name, we could re-consider it.
If you prefer to install it manually that's an option.
Visit: http://www.seleniumhq.org/download/ and download the latest version.
When downloading the selenium-server-standalone-2.53.0.jar
you may see a warning in your browser:
Click on "keep" to save the file.
Once you have it, put it in the bin directory of your project
and re-name it to selenium.jar (without the version number).
Remind me to Respond to these:
- http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24314040/getting-started-with-nightwatch-js
- http://stackoverflow.com/questions/37699036/is-it-possible-to-start-a-selenium-server-inside-travis
- http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25919673/file-upload-testing-in-nightwatch-js
- http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31388280/can-i-create-reusable-test-steps-in-nightwatch-js/31393249#31393249
- use saucelabs with nightwatch? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/36137270/how-to-use-saucelabs-with-nightwatch
- keypress: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31812935/nightwatch-testing-sendkeys-and-keys-not-sending-key-clicks ... answer
- Run Selenium as child process: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27408864/cant-launch-selenium-phantomjs-ghostdriver-as-child-processes
- Current running browser: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/38102543/when-running-nightwatch-js-test-how-can-i-get-the-name-of-browser-currently-runn
FAQs
Learn how to use nightwatch for front-end testing. step-by-step tutorial
We found that learn-nightwatch demonstrated a not healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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